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Tales of Beatrix Potter
Tales of Beatrix Potter is a live-action/animated feature film produced by CoolKidz Productions. Production began in 2008, and the film was released on November 7th, 2012, for the 110th anniversary of Beatrix Potter's first and most famous character, Peter Rabbit. Based upon the characters of the children's books by Beatrix Potter, Tales of Beatrix Potter features six stories from the original books. These stories are "The Tale of Peter Rabbit", "The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher", "The Tailor of Gloucester", "The Tale of Benjamin Bunny", "The Tale of Two Bad Mice", and "The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck". The film is written, produced, and directed by Jack Patrick Munley. Paul O'Silly served as the animator. The live-action cast is Kristina Quigley as Beatrix Potter and Bo Pierce as Martin . The voice cast includes Steven as Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny, Paul O'Silly as Mr. Jeremy Fisher and The Tailor of Gloucester, and Cristina Romao as Jemima Puddle-Duck. The stories written by Beatrix Potter are narrated by Nadia May. PLOT A young boy named Martin has to do a book report, but he doesn’t know which author to write about. Beatrix Potter helps him by telling him the story of her life, while also telling some of the stories she wrote. In “The Tale of Peter Rabbit”, Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter Rabbit all live together with their mother in a sand bank under a big fir tree. As Old Mrs. Rabbit is going out, she warns her children not to go into Mr. McGregor's Garden, because their Father had been caught by the farmer and put into a pie. But while Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail go out to pick blackberries, Peter goes to Mr. McGregor’s Garden anyway. There he gorges on vegetables until Mr. McGregor spies him. Peter tries to escape but gets lost in the garden. He lost his shoes among the vegetables, and his jacket in a net. He does escape from the garden after a while, but the clothes are used to dress a scarecrow. When Peter comes home, he gets sick in bed with a tablespoon of chamomile tea, his well-behaved sisters have a supper of bread, milk, and blackberries. In “The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher”, Jeremy Fisher is a frog who lives in a damp little house amongst the buttercups at the edge of a pond. His larder and back passage are "slippy-sloppy" with water, but he likes getting his feet wet; no one ever scolds and he never catches cold. One day, Jeremy finds it raining and decides to go fishing. Should he catch more than five minnows, he will invite his friends to dinner. He puts on a Macintosh and shiny goloshes, takes his rod and basket, and sets off with "enormous hops" to the place where he keeps his lily-pad boat. He poles to a place he knows is good for minnows. Once there, he sits cross-legged on his lily-pad and arranges his tackle. He has "the dearest little red float". His rod is a stalk of grass and his line a horsehair. An hour passes without a nibble. He takes a break and lunches on a butterfly sandwich. A water beetle tweaks his toe, and rats rustling about in the rushes force him to seek a safer location. He drops his line into the water and immediately has a bite. It is not a minnow but little Jack Sharp, a stickleback. The fish escapes but not before Jeremy pricks his fingers on Jack's spines. A shoal of little fishes come to the surface to laugh at Jeremy. Jeremy sucks his sore fingers, but a trout rises from the water and seizes him with a snap (Mr. Jeremy screams, "OW-OW-OW!!!"). The trout dives to the bottom, but finds the Macintosh tasteless and spits Jeremy out, swallowing only his goloshes. Jeremy bounces "up to the surface of the water, like a cork and the bubbles out of a soda water bottle", and swims to the pond's edge. He scrambles up the bank and hops home through the meadow, quite sure he will never go fishing again. In the end, Jeremy has put sticking plaster on his fingers and welcomes his friends, Sir Isaac Newton, a newt, and Mr. Alderman Ptolemy Tortoise, a tortoise who eats salad. Isaac wears a black and gold waistcoat and Ptolemy brings a salad in a string bag. Jeremy has prepared roasted grasshopper with ladybird sauce. The narrator describes the dish as a "frog treat", but thinks "it must have been nasty!” In “The Tailor of Gloucester”, a poor tailor in Gloucester sends his cat Simpkin to buy food and a twist of cherry-coloured silk to complete a waistcoat commissioned by the mayor for his wedding on Christmas morning. While Simpkin is gone, the tailor finds mice the cat has imprisoned under teacups. The mice are released and scamper away. When Simpkin returns and finds his mice gone, she hides the twist in anger. The tailor falls ill and is unable to complete the waistcoat, but, on Christmas Day, he is surprised to find the waistcoat finished. The work has been done by the grateful mice. However, one buttonhole remains unfinished because there was "no more twist!" Simpkin gives the tailor the twist to complete the work and the success of the waistcoat makes the tailor's fortune. In “The Tale of Benjamin Bunny”, Mr. McGregor and his wife leave home in their gig, and Benjamin Bunny and his cousin Peter Rabbit venture into Mr. McGregor's garden to retrieve the clothes Peter lost there earlier. They find the blue jacket and brown shoes on a scarecrow, but Peter is apprehensive about lingering in the garden because of his previous experience. Benjamin delays their departure by gathering onions, which he wraps in Peter's handkerchief. He then takes a casual stroll around the garden, followed by an increasingly nervous Peter. Rounding a corner, they see a cat and hide under a basket, but the cat then sits on top of the basket for hours, trapping the pair. Benjamin's father enters the garden looking for his son. He drives the cat from the basket and locks her in the greenhouse, then frees Benjamin and Peter, and punishes them for going to Mr. McGregor's garden by whipping them with a switch he had brought. Once home, Peter gives the onions to his mother, who forgives his adventure because he has recovered his jacket and shoes. Following his return, Mr. McGregor is puzzled by the scarecrow's missing clothes and the cat locked in the greenhouse. In “The Tale of Two Bad Mice”, the tale begins with "once upon a time" and a description of a "very beautiful doll's-house" belonging to a doll called Lucinda and her cook-doll Jane. Jane never cooks because the doll's-house food is made of plaster and was "bought ready-made, in a box full of shavings". Though the food will not come off the plates, it is "extremely beautiful". One morning the dolls leave the nursery for a drive in their perambulator. No one is in the nursery when Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca , two mice living under the skirting board, peep out and cross the hearthrug to the doll's-house. They open the door, enter, and "squeak for joy" when they discover the dining table set for dinner. It is "all so convenient!" Tom Thumb discovers the food is plaster and loses his temper. The two smash every dish on the table – "bang, bang, smash, smash!" – and even try to burn one in the "red-hot crinkly paper fire" in the kitchen fireplace. Tom Thumb scurries up the sootless chimney while Hunca Munca empties the kitchen canisters of their red and blue beads. Tom Thumb takes the dolls' dresses from the chest of drawers and tosses them out the window while Hunca Munca pulls the feathers from the dolls' bolster. In the midst of her mischief, Hunca Munca remembers she needs a bolster and the two take the dolls' bolster to their mouse-hole. They carry off several small odds and ends from the doll's-house including a bird cage and a bookcase that will not fit through the mouse-hole. The nursery door suddenly opens and the dolls return in their perambulator. Lucinda and Jane are speechless when they behold the vandalism in their house. The little girl who owns the doll's-house gets a policeman doll and positions it at the front door, but her nurse is more practical and sets a mouse-trap. We then learn that the mice are not "so very naughty after all": Tom Thumb pays for his crimes with a crooked sixpence placed in the doll's stocking on Christmas Eve and Hunca Munca atones for her hand in the destruction by sweeping the doll's-house every morning with her dust-pan and broom. In “The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck”, the tale begins in a farmyard which is home to a duck called Jemima Puddle-duck. She wants to hatch her own eggs, but the farmer's wife believes ducks make poor sitters and routinely confiscates their eggs to allow the hens to incubate them. Jemima tries to hide her eggs, but they are always found and carried away. She sets off along the road in poke bonnet and shawl to find a safe place away from the farm to lay her eggs. At the top of a hill, she spies a distant wood, flies to it, and waddles about until she discovers an appropriate nesting place. However, a charming gentleman with "black prick ears and sandy-coloured whiskers" persuades her to nest in a shed at his home. Jemima is led to his "tumble-down shed" (which is curiously filled with feathers), and makes herself a nest with little ado. Jemima lays her eggs, and the fox suggests a dinner party to mark the event. He asks her to collect the traditional herbs used in stuffing a duck, telling her the seasonings will be used for an omelette. Jemima sets about her errand, but the farm collie, Kep, meets her as she carries onions from the farm kitchen. She reveals her errand, and Kep sees through the fox's plan at once. With the help of two fox-hound puppies, Kep rescues Jemima and the "foxy-whiskered gentleman" is chased away and never seen again. However, the hungry fox-hounds eat Jemima's eggs. Jemima is escorted back to the farm in tears over her lost eggs, but, in time, lays more eggs and successfully hatches four ducklings. The film ends with Beatrix Potter saying goodbye to Martin. During the ending credits, the song “Perfect Day” (also heard in “The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends”) ''is heard. '''CAST LIVE ACTION CAST Bo Pierce - Martin Kristina Quigley - Beatrix Potter VOICE CAST Kristina Quigley - Old Mrs. Rabbit Donna Kim Munley - Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail Steven - Peter Rabbit Jack Patrick Munley - Mr. McGregor Paul O'Silly - Mr. Jeremy Fisher Jake Mastronarti - Mr. Alderman Ptolemy Tortoise Matthew Jenkins - Sir Isaac Newton Paul O'Silly - The Tailor of Gloucester Donna Kim Munley - Simpkin Jack Patrick Munley - The Footman Paul O'Silly - The Mice Donna Kim Munley - The Mayor of Gloucester Steven - Benjamin Bunny Jake Mastronarti - Old Mr. Benjamin Bunny Crosby, Nash, Stills & Young - Lucinda and Jane Kyle Tanis - Tom Thumb Kristina Quigley - Hunca Munca Jack Patrick Munley - The Policeman Doll Cristina Romao - Jemima Puddle-Duck Jack Patrick Munley - Kep the Collie-Dog Kristina Quigley - Mrs. Rebeccah Puddle-Duck Paul O'Silly - The Foxy-Whiskered Gentleman Matthew Jenkins - The Fox-Hound Puppies The stories were narrated by Nadia May. SONGS 1. Somewhere Only We Know - Keane 2. Five Currant Buns In A Baker’s Shop - Old Mrs. Rabbit, Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, Peter Rabbit 3. Peter Rabbit’s Vegetable Song – Peter Rabbit 4. I’m Mr. Jeremy Fisher- Mr. Jeremy Fisher 5. Fishes Come Bite- Mr. Jeremy Fisher 6. Deck the Halls- The Countdown Kids 7. Cherry Red Silk- The Tailor of Gloucester 8. Cherry Red Silk (Reprise)- Simpkin 9. Christmas Songs From Gloucester- The Mice 10. We Wish You A Merry Christmas- The Countdown Kids 11. Knitting-Old Mrs. Rabbit, Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail 12. Our House- Lucinda and Jane 13. I Wish I Could Hatch My Own Eggs- Jemima Puddle-Duck 14. Perfect Day- Miriam Stockley DIFFERENCES FROM THE BOOKS ▪ The scenes with Beatrix Potter talking to Martin were added to tell about Beatrix Potter’s life. ▪ The other stories by Beatrix Potter are omitted ('''''The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, The Tale of Tom Kitten, The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse, The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin, The Tale of The Flopsy Bunnies, The Tale of Samuel Whiskers or The Roly-Poly Pudding, The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse, The Tale of Pigling Bland, The Story of A Fierce Bad Rabbit, Appley Dapply’s Nursery Rhymes, The Tale of Ginger & Pickles, etc.). PRODUCTION Jack Patrick Munley started production on Tales of Beatrix Potter in 2008, because the stories held a special place in his heart. The idea for a film version came from his love for the stories, and from other film and television adaptions of the stories. The music came from a lot of sources, but mostly it came from Frederick Asthon’s ballet version of the stories (which was also called “Tales of Beatrix Potter”), the British television series “The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends”, and Peter Cobbin’s CD of “Beatrix Potter’s Nursery Rhyme Book.” Originally, the film was supposed to feature ten stories from the Beatrix Potter books, but the final version ended up drawing inspiration from six stories. This explains why favorite characters like Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, Tom Kitten, Squirrel Nutkin, Mrs. Tittlemouse, and Pigling Bland were omitted as production went along. SUCCESS Jack Patrick Munley had a private premiere on November 7th, 2012, with just his mother, and himself. This is also the date it came to a DVD. He gave away copies of the DVD to family and friends. Jack Patrick Munley uploaded it on YouTube on November 9th, 2012. He also released each of the animated stories in the film as seperate YouTube videos. (Originally, the YouTube release date was going to be December 1st, 2012, but he loved the film so much it got released on YouTube early.) Jack Patrick Munley loved the results of Tales of Beatrix Potter so much, he started plans to make a possible adaption of Roald Dahl's beloved classic, James and the Giant Peach.